Sword and Fist, Part 3

See? I promised I'd be back to this one. Let's move right on to Chapter 3.

This chapter is a fluffy chapter; it's about role-playing rather than more game mechanics. It starts off with a discussion of how fighters and monks fit in the world they live in, as well as their most common adventuring roles. For fighters, these roles include professional soldiers, mercenaries, and knights. For monks, they are often penitents, Zen masters, spiritual advisors, or spiritual enforcers. We also get a bit of a recap of the information from the Hero Builder's Guidebook on race/class combinations and the benefits and drawbacks to each. For example, gnomes have a Strength penalty but a Constitution bonus, while dwarves are of course the quintessential fighter.

Next is a discussion of organizations in the campaign, particularly fighting orders suitable to these two classes. Several of these organizations are described, and some are linked to the prestige classes from the previous chapter. The organizations that are described include the Fists of Hextor (with a PC), the Knight Protectors of the Great Kingdom (PC), the Knights of the Watch, the Ravagers (PC), and the Red Avengers (PC). The descriptions are as generic as possible to allow for putting these organizations into any campaign, although obviously some of them are most suited to a Greyhawk campaign.

Let's jump to Chapter 4. This is about ways to use the rules in advantageous ways while playing a fighter or a monk in order to pick skills and feats that best suit the role you are playing. For example, the duelist would prefer skills like Balance, Bluff, Innuendo, and Tumble to Intimidation. Suitable feats would include Ambidexterity, Blind-Fight, Dodge, Lightning Reflexes, and Weapon Finesse.

Warrior Monks of Shao Lin? That's pretty Earth-specific to me. Still the idea can be used as a springboard to similar types of orders in the fantasy campaign. Gladiators get their own prestige class, and here are given a list of skills and feats suitable to the arena. Pirate...everyone loves pirates. They are basically swashbucklers at sea. Or nasty renegades who love slaughtering ship crews. Tastes may differ. The Desert Raider is a fighter (or monk) who lives in a very inhospitable region, so his skills and feats are more suited to that environment than a typical dungeon.

There's a brief section on how to plan out your character's advancement, in particular looking at the feats necessary to achieve certain prestige classes. It seems like it's being assumed that players will want these prestige classes automatically, doesn't it?

Next are a couple of pages on dealing with different types of opponents, including unbeatable ones. Those seem to have been eliminated from the game as it became more of a 'level-by-level' thing where you only fought opponents that could challenge you, but never to the point of being unbeatable. It's a loss, for sure.

Tactics! How to properly Cleave your enemies, how to deal with reach and flanking. Basic stuff, but not everyone at this point was tactically aware. So, it's good for the newbies at least. Then there's a section on...doing math. Really? Using mathematical formulas to figure out the optimal way to fight? No, thank you. That's an extreme pass for me. Nobody would have time to do that sort of thing in an actual fight, so why waste time with it in the game?

I'll come back to finish this chapter (and the next one) tomorrow; there's plenty to go over still.